CVE-2020-4040 | CSRF issue on preview pages in Bolt CMS

Exp

Bolt CMS before version 3.7.1 lacked CSRF protection in the preview generating endpoint. Previews are intended to be generated by the admins, developers, chief-editors, and editors, who are authorized to create content in the application. But due to lack of proper CSRF protection, unauthorized users could generate a preview. This has been fixed in Bolt 3.7.1

Published: 2020-06-08 Last update: 2026-06-16 Assigner: [email protected] Source: [email protected]

Conclusion & alert: CVE-2020-4040 is rated High Exploit Risk (76.8/100): CVSS High severity, with medium exploitation likelihood (EPSS 1.77%). Core evidence: 2 public exploit reference(s) are indexed (Exploit-DB). EPSS rose +1.09% over the last day, indicating growing attacker interest. Mandatory action: Public exploits are available—assess exposure, apply mitigations, and prioritize patching.

Risk is dynamic; we continuously reassess and refresh what is shown on this page as upstream context changes.

Public exploit references (Exploit-DB) for CVE-2020-4040

EDB-ID Source Kind Published Link
nvd_ref exploit_tag Exploit-DB ↗
nvd_ref exploit_tag Exploit-DB ↗

Exploit prediction scoring system (EPSS) score for CVE-2020-4040

EPSS lead: Daily EPSS estimates relative likelihood of exploitation; percentile ranks this CVE among scored vulnerabilities (higher = more severe relative rank).

# Date Old EPSS score New EPSS score Delta (New - Old)
1 2026-06-15 0.67% 1.77% +1.09%
2 2026-04-02 0.79% 0.67% -0.12%
3 2026-03-04 0.79%

Full EPSS history (22 records total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2020-4040

CVSS metrics for this CVE.

Base score Version Severity Vector Exploitability Impact Score source
8.6 3.1 HIGH
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:N/A:N Click to expand
Attack vector (AV:N)
Could be attacked over the internet or any normal routed network—not just someone sitting at the machine.
Attack complexity (AC:L)
Once they can reach the bug, pulling it off is straightforward—no weird race conditions or rare setup.
Privileges required (PR:N)
No account or special rights needed—anonymous or random user is enough.
User interaction (UI:N)
Nobody has to click “OK” or open a trap file; it can work without a victim helping.
Scope (S:C)
Breaking this can reach past the original component and bite other resources—bigger blast radius.
Confidentiality (C:H)
Serious risk that confidential data gets exposed in a big way.
Integrity (I:N)
Data isn’t meaningfully altered or forged.
Availability (A:N)
Service keeps running; no real outage angle.
3.9 4.0 [email protected]
4.3 3.1 MEDIUM
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:N Click to expand
Attack vector (AV:N)
Could be attacked over the internet or any normal routed network—not just someone sitting at the machine.
Attack complexity (AC:L)
Once they can reach the bug, pulling it off is straightforward—no weird race conditions or rare setup.
Privileges required (PR:N)
No account or special rights needed—anonymous or random user is enough.
User interaction (UI:R)
A real person has to do something—click, install, enable—otherwise it doesn’t land.
Scope (S:U)
Damage stays in the same “trust bubble” as the broken component—no big spill into unrelated systems.
Confidentiality (C:N)
Doesn’t really leak secrets in a meaningful way.
Integrity (I:L)
Attackers could change some data, but it’s limited—not everything goes.
Availability (A:N)
Service keeps running; no real outage angle.
2.8 1.4 [email protected]
4.3 2.0 MEDIUM
AV:N/AC:M/Au:N/C:N/I:P/A:N Click to expand
Access vector (AV:N)
Can be exploited remotely over network reachability.
Access complexity (AC:M)
Exploitation needs some favorable conditions, but not exceptional ones.
Authentication (AU:N)
No authentication is required.
Confidentiality impact (C:N)
No confidentiality impact.
Integrity impact (I:P)
Partial integrity impact.
Availability impact (A:N)
No availability impact.
8.6 2.9 [email protected]

Weakness enumeration for CVE-2020-4040

GitHub Security Advisory for CVE-2020-4040

GHSA-2q66-6cc3-6xm8 · Severity: high · Ecosystem: composer — CSRF issue on preview pages in Bolt CMS

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2020-4040

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
boltcms bolt < 3.7.1 cpe:2.3:a:boltcms:bolt:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

References for CVE-2020-4040

cvelogic Threat Intelligence